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Well got recruited to build a smoker for a gift for my brother in law for xmas.So here we go. I followed the basic design of a drum smoker pretty closely. Changed a few things from the design I use, but not much. Had to make sure it would work fine since it will be traveling to Virginia before it can be fired up for use.

It started life as a barrel with some type of oil in it.Place where I bought it from acid washed it for me and all the good stuff and then I brought it home and cut the top open(it was closed head,no liner) and easy offed it and then washed it at car wash. Then proceeded to spend the rest of the day grinding it out.Maybe not necessary since no liner but did it anyway. Also used a HF weed burner on it to torch the inside. Got it pretty hot but, did not burn "all" the paint off the outside.

That HF weed burner by the way is killer!! A great buy indeed. I used HF step bits to make my holes,and once again they worked like a charm.I don't like all their tools but some of them are a damn good buy.I pretty much used stainless hardware exclusively, but I will say that soaking zinc plated bolts or whatever in some muratic acid will remove the plating in a hurry!!!!!! If I would do this again i'd probably get a welder,but bolts will work and there are other options beside stainless.

Hope this isn't too long winded as they say but trying to cover most of the bases..Top is from a weber kettle that was in pretty good shape. Just really roughed it up, and primed and painted it.Did use soem JB weld to even out some spots in the Weber lid.overall turned out great. Everything was painted with spray paint,NON high temp stuff. I personally do not believe that high temp is necessary. Basket is weber grill grate and expanded metal from HD. I don't like to reuse the cooking surfaces so bought 2 new ones. Used a piece of old one to make handle on basket. Handle for kettle top was redone and painted.Ended up building a paint room in the basement to spray everything since it's too cold in garage now. Worked damn good.

Well I guess let's get the pics started..

Unfortunately didn't have a pressure washer to use for handle donation so i had to fabricate one out of 3/4 " conduit. Worked great and looks good!
hopefully I covered everything.

Wow! Great job! I'm planning something very similar this week with my uds. I just got my Bears decals in the mail Monday. How much of yours is painted and how much is decal, if you don't mind my asking? Nice touch with the NFL logo, too.

Everything is 100 % painted. I've always been too scared to use decals thinking they won't hold up to the heat. Thought about going magnet route but paint is cheaper!

brickie

I Don't have the ambient temp you do I'm sure, but I've had my UDS over 450 with decals and no damage done. Was playing around with my new stoker and had it around 450 over and hr and both my decals were just fine. Just sharing info :)